Journey
by Zaram'delar
Summary: The journey of life can only end in death. Taang
1. Journey

**Obligatory Disclaimer: **The wonderful world of Avatar isn't mine. Really, it isn't.

A/N: I've seen this sort of story used over and over again, as part of, or the entire story, and most of them go way above a few thousand. So, I thought I'd squeeze everything down to less than a thousand, and see if I could get anything useful out of it. So, goodbye first draft, and hello first edition. It's a slow going process towards a finished product.

For some reason, this became a series. Oh well.

* * *

_Journey _

* * *

The letter was received in Ba Sing Se, one of the many thousands that had been delivered to every corner of the globe. A simple letter on gold embossed parchment, with a seal of a flying boar stamped on one side, an ultimatum to a girl who has ignored all previous letters. Not enough to cause an uproar, but more than enough for a boy to offer to accompany her out of politeness, as he had with every letter beforehand. To his surprise, the girl agreed. 

The journey started awkwardly enough, and when they had talked about everything other than the letter and the journey, the pair lapsed into a tense silence, each unable to find the right words to say to the other, each seemingly content watching the scenery crawl by underneath them. Circumstances aside, the journey would have been idyllic. Indeed, the occasional soul they came across had said so, feeding fuel to the rumors that had already swarmed the pair, and yet only a single wanderer had noticed the strange, uneasy silence between the two, and had asked the boy about it.

The boy managed to keep a straight face, but to the wanderer, he found himself unwilling to say anything of value. In fact, the pair left the wanderer a little more confused, and a raw cheek when girl had been the subject of his questioning.

At dawn, weeks later, the journey had reached its end. As the sky bison prepared for an easy descent into the fog strewn streets of Gaoling, the girl smiled at the boy, and for the first time in many days, spoke with a throat dry and unsure from underuse.

"This is it."

The lumbering sky bison merely hovered a few ways off the ground as the girl leapt unceremoniously onto the ground. The boy smiled uneasily back at the girl, and with great hesitation, spoke as well.

"I guess this is goodbye then." His voice cracked in the slightest.

He held out his hand, offering a small whistle to the girl. It was small, intricately carved with the likeness of the sky bison that bore them the entire journey: his own keepsake, now hers to keep. Reaching out, the girl instead pulled the boy down into a desperate embrace, her clouded eyes shining with unshed tears. A simple hug, a little too tightly to be platonic, a little too long to be friendly, and yet conveying between them everything that could not be said. Words weren't needed, nor were they voiced as the two shared a single moment that seemed to last an eternity.

Letting go, he placed upon her delicate hand the whistle, and closed it tightly with his own. He opened his mouth to speak, but choked on his words. He looked at her, then looked away, unwilling to meet the piercing gaze of her sightless eyes. He climbed back onto the sky bison without a word, looked back for one last time, and failed miserably at smiling. Silent tears fell, his eyes betraying emotions that she could never see. The sky bison needed no signal and took flight at once, roaring morosely as it went, as if to convey the very emotions its master had been holding back.

The girl waved her free hand weakly, pulling the whistle close to her heart. As the boy and his mount slowly faded from her senses, she stood her ground, weeping yet smiling bitterly as if a heavy burden had been lifted off her shoulders, a soft whisper to the wind that he would never hear.

"Goodbye."

* * *

A/N: The urge to change every aspect of it has been around since I first published it a few days ago, so before this gets too entrenched, I decided to change it. Feedback is much appreciated, since I find this form of fiction tricky to balance. 'Tis hard to keep all elements of a story together when you don't have the space to do so. 

...uh...

Review!


	2. Starting Anew

**Disclaimer:** Totally not mine. Really.

I'm a very lazy writer. Really. In fact, this story was supposed to be done a month ago, but I kept stashing the idea away in cold storage. And now that my chapter is done, more or less, I can now procrastinate some more.

* * *

_Starting Anew_

* * *

She walked stiffly, almost unwillingly, entering the Hall without the great moxie that always accompanied her. The crowd hushed when she appeared, close friends and relatives of her father; people whom she had never met. People who never knew she existed until she left home so many years ago. There were none of her friends present, her father had made sure of that. The wedding was supposed to go perfectly. To unite the families, her father blustered, the great merchant empire of the Bei Fongs and the Pangs! 

And in a sense, the wedding _is _going perfectly. Everyone thought so, as the bride-to-be walked slowly towards her fiancé, the influential Pang heir. Everyone except one man, hiding under a thick hooded cloak to keep away the prying eyes, far from the watchful sentries that kept the rabble far from the nobles.

The cloaked man watched the heiress walk past in silence, seeing every little difference that happened after so long a while, marveling at what had changed, and what had stayed the same. He idly wondered if he should make a scene, or leave, but firmly rooted himself in his little shadowy alcove. He had to see it happen with his own eyes. He took a single step back, to hide himself better in the shadows.

A mistake, actually.

She stiffened, enough of a disturbance to catch anyone's attention. Her head turned to his general direction, a look of despairing hope in her eyes, and suddenly the cloaked man knew: he had been spotted. Seeing no other way out of it, he stepped out of the crowd, looking down at the girl with as much impassiveness as he could muster.

She held out a delicate hand, brushing it to his cheek for a moment, and pulled the hood of his cloak back, revealing his face for the first time in the Hall. The Avatar. The crowd gasped. Lao Bei Fong glowered silently at the Avatar, not daring to make a scene in front of all the guests.

"Hey Toph." He smiled weakly.

"You're taller than me." Toph deadpanned.

"Three years would do that to a person."

The crowd was truly silent now, everyone watching the Avatar and the bride-to-be interact with eager intent. Lao Bei Fong looked at Aang straight in the eye, hissing in anger. "Avatar, it would do best for you to leave now. This can be sorted out later. I will not have you ruining my daughter's wedding!"

Aang nodded, and with a small parting smile to Toph, he turned away.

He felt a small hand touch his hand, and he turned back to see her staring intently at him. He smiled at her as reassuringly as he could.

"I'm sorry, Aang." Toph whispered, just loud enough for him to hear.

"I'm sorry too, Toph." Aang looked away. "But there's nothing we could do now."

"We could do this." And Toph tugged hard on his hand, went on tiptoes and she pulled Aang down for a kiss, pushing her mouth against his.

It was a strange kiss, as far as her normal kisses were concerned. It wasn't a kiss entirely for Aang, as he soon realized, but a kiss for her slack-jawed parents, for the wrinkly matchmaker, for her would-be suitor and for everyone else watching, to let them know of her decision. It was a flag-waving sort of kiss just to announce to the world that she chose the Avatar. She chose Aang.

You can't get anymore obvious than that.

Overwhelmed at first, more than a little confused next, Aang struggled to regain his footing so he wouldn't fall over even as Toph's lithe body pressed harder against his. He worried about everyone watching them, then about Toph, before throwing all caution to the wind and throwing himself into the kiss as deeply as he could until he could feel nothing else but Toph's lips, the softness of her skin against his, and the feel of her hot ragged breath on his face.

They broke off the kiss, each trying to catch his own breath. Nobody moved.

"You'd better get us out of here, Twinkletoes." She whispered huskily. Aang couldn't agree more.

"Maybe if you'd kiss me again."

"You can have all you want after we leave." Toph insisted. Aang chuckled.

"Appa's waiting outside." He answered.

"Just like old times?"

"On three then."

"One." Aang began.

"Two." Toph continued.

"Three."

And they ran, with her father chasing and shouting after the both of them.

Off to a new journey.

* * *

A/N: 

Never been the fan of romance fiction...or fanfiction in general, actually. Which makes me wonder why the hell I keep writing these sort of things.

Don't think of this as an ending to the story. Stories never truly end; there will always be something more to tell about it. In fact, don't think of this as one continuous story. This chapter can stand alone without the first, and so will the succeeding chapters, if I ever get around to writing them. Each chapter is a one-shot, but it all tells us the same story, with different settings.

Oh, and review. Or don't. I always need the feedback. I want to know what I mess up.


	3. Journey's End

_Disclaimers: Avatar isn't actually mine, but I'd like to think it is. So is Death. Go guess who owns him._

_A/N: A death fic-thing, the first of a series of three, if I ever get around to writing them. Each one would be self-sufficient. I'd put them to a separate story, but I find this fits the end of Journey quite well. I meant to post this many many months ago, but Oblivion got in the way. _

_Go read._

* * *

_Journey's End _

* * *

It began with a dream. A nightmare, more accurately placed, as he woke up in a cold sweat screaming her name out loud. And she entered the room, and shook him until he calmed down, and made sure to tell him that the nightmare wouldn't be happening at all if she could help it. Still, he consulted a fortune teller, one who promptly told him that it was no nightmare that he experienced, but a premonition. It was bound to happen, and nothing could be done about it. He disagreed, however, and he began to take steps to prevent the unthinkable future he had witnessed from coming to pass. 

And so the mad quest began.

He heard about it once before, a distant memory that he had struggled to remember. A sword, a spear, or maybe it was a staff, fashioned by an old and powerful sorceror when the world was young and Bending was still a concept people struggled with. Whatever it was, it would serve his purpose well.

In secret, he searched for it. First digging down the sandy earth for the fabled Library of Wan Shi Tong, where all written knowledge was said to end up in. Then to the Spirit Oasis, confronting the Face Eater in his lair for the third time in a match of wills. Next to the Great Swamp, where the world's memory was drawn through its massive roots. Finally, to Crescent Moon Isle on the winter solstice, when the spirits of the past Avatars where at their strongest. In each of these, he had found nothing that would aid him, instead seeing fear and hesitation from even the most powerful and oldest of the spirits. The world around him proved to have little use, as informants and old sages could show nothing, while fortune tellers and diviners can only see the inevitable that was about to happen.

Still, he continued to search, using what little time he had to spare from his duties. Then at last, he had found it. A book, old and worn, chained to a stone pedestal hiding in the crevices of a deep and lonely ruin filled with the most outlandish traps and creatures, as if someone had taken the greatest pains in hiding it. He reached for it a little too eagerly; the slightest touch burned him while leaving no mark, and yet the stinging sensation seemed to bite down deeper than the mortal body, and he suddenly felt the raw power, and understood the reason for all the fear. Opening it with a covered hand, he began to read the arcane glyphs, feeling the strange and foreign powers that the art of Bending had shunned, and slowly, something began to take shape in front of him. When the last glyphs were read, the book snapped shut, and a fire began to burn from the insides of the pages to the outside, and soon, nothing was left of the book but ashes, and the most ordinary looking scythe.

The scythe; a long, curved blade attached to the end of a long wooden pole. By all means it was just a scythe, but when its blade approached rock, the rock cleaved in two, without the scythe ever touching the rock. And with this, he smiled, and the faintest glimmer of hope returned to his despairing eyes. This will do.

And he hid it away, knowing that it was not needed yet, not for a long while.

* * *

Years passed. Still, the scythe laid undisturbed, ready for when it was needed. He spoke of this to no one, not even to her, because he knew she would never approve of it. And while the world changed around them, they did not. Though in body full-blooded adults, in spirit they remained as they had first met so many years ago, two innocent young children who wanted to see the world, and save it when they had the time. 

But the premonition was sure to happen, and even with the scythe, he could only watch helplessly as time ravaged her, for the scythe's use was only at the very end. Slowly, but assuredly, she wasted away in the most painful fashion, but she held strong, and in front of her, he did as well. When she could not walk without feeling the most excruciating pain, he brought out the scythe. When she could not eat or drink, he toyed with it, playfully swinging it this way and that. A desperate effort of distraction to pass the long nights.

When she began to gasp for every breath, he stood ready, the scythe firmly in his hands. He waited with baited breath, and the slightest creaks of the wood caught his attention, even through her labored breathing. It was midnight, and it was darker than normal, but he did not need eyes to know what to do. She had taught him that. He was waiting, but not for something to happen, but for someone to appear.

And someone did appear, though the creaky floorboards did not betray his footsteps at all. The door, old as it was, seemed oddly silent as it swung open, and closed. In fact, it seemed the door and floors were never touched at all. He only knew as he felt the lightest tap on his shoulder.

"Just who are we waiting for?" The tapper intoned.

He turned to the tapper, bringing the old scythe to bear. The sight of it would have made the Face Eater cower in his lair, but it had no effect on the visitor, just the sharp sound of a stifled chuckle that annoyed him to no end.

"Some people play games." The tapper said conversationally, as if ignoring the rage building up in his eyes, and the gasping breaths that punctuated the silence that seemed to happen less and less frequently.

"I am not some people." He hissed, and swung the scythe around to strike the tapper through the hood. There was a spark of light, and for a moment, he saw the scythe and the tapper, and the sword between the scythe and the tapper. The tapper looked at him straight in the eyes, and in the blind darkness, he could make out two infinitely small dots of bluish light where the eyes should be.

"No, you are not." The tapper pushed the scythe back with the sword and knocked him down with the hilt. "You can see me. But you also know what I have to do."

"Then not here! Not her! " He roared, and he lost control, sending large blasts of fiery air at the tapper. The tapper paid no mind to this, as the waves of buffeting air did not even disturb the tattered cloak that he wore. The near darkness was transformed into a hellish tone of yellow, as the wooden room quickly caught fire.

The tapper raised a skeletal hand to his face, and a skeletal head turned to him without emotion, but the two points of light in its eye sockets betrayed disappointment. "I am Death." The tapper, Death spoke calmly. "Everyone's time comes. Or do you still wish for her to suffer?"

He turned to her, listened to her ragged and solitary breaths amid the wild roaring of the fire that was quickly spreading towards her. And he realized that something was amiss.

"She wasn't like this in the dream." He muttered to himself in a stark realization. Then to Death, he shouted, "What did you do?"

"I did nothing." Death shook his head. "She was only to die of illness, pass silently into the night. But you changed it. Now you will kill her. That sort of irony is very unavoidable."

"I can still save her."

"Perhaps. And then do what? You can only lengthen her agony here."

"But I - "

"You will see her again soon, but that is all I can tell you."

He hesitated, and Death waited on him, until at last he relented when the flames began to lick the fringes of the bed where she lay. "Do it, but not in front of me." He said, defeated, but still defiant.

Death nodded, and raised the sword high in the air, and in a swift, decisive motion swept it down. The bed and the walls split in two even before the sword could touch them, but the body remained untouched, unmarred save for the smattering of ash that fell over her pale skin.

"Can I at least talk to her?"

Death shook his head.

* * *

They found him in the ruins of the house, carrying her lifeless body in his hands, looking as if he had seen a ghost, which he actually had. But no one knew that, and they raised him to his feet, and helped him carry the burden of her body. Still, it was many days before he could talk again, many weeks for him to recover fully, many months for her to be buried in her own element, but they were patient. They made do without their protector, and gave him wide berth, knowing so little about him and her, yet enough to know how her loss had broken him. 

Fully recovered, a year after the fire, he disappeared, leaving a note, or a scratched out ramble in a crumpled bit of paper that people assumed was the reason for his disappearance. It was another journey, but one that he would do alone.

He brought nothing except for the clothes on his back and an old scythe that no one bothered with.

* * *

_A/N: When I started this, this was supposed to be a very long story. But as I found out, the sequence wasn't that climactic if I have made it incredibly long. I find this short form entertaining to write, since I'm not obligated to show any information other than what you have right here. As usual, I'm bound to edit this within a day of two, since I'm only starting to get used to this style. _

_Regarding continuity, which I require, think of this as jumping to the very very end. The journey of life only really ends at death, and even then, a new journey begins._

_By the time you get here, you've probably read it all, so just review. Feedback is the lifeblood of the lazy author, since email alerts remind me to actually update this. Haha. _


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